Miami-Dade mayor's budget proposal slashes services, jobs - South Florida Business Journal:

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Faced with a $400 milliomn budget deficit, Alvarez said during a noon news conference that he was puttint all options onthe table. “Nobody wants to see their taxes increased, nobody wantd service reductions, nobody wants to see peopl e lose theirjobs – but something has to Alvarez said. “There is no perfect scenario.” The proposed $7.8 billiohn budget also includes the elimination of morethan 1,700 positions. There are 1,218 vacant positionxs in the budget, but Alvarez said he was not optimistifc that they could pair each of the affected employeeds withavailable positions. Merit increases and longevit y bonuses would continue tobe frozen.
Across the county, 229 positiones and $55.351 million in administrativwe reductions have been made in the proposed according to abudget memo. The cuts come at a time when havefallemn $22.55 billion, or 9.5 percent, the worst year-over-year declin in at least 40 years, according to Propertyu Appraiser Pedro Garcia. "We can expect the tax roll lossee for 2010 to be as we will not benefit from significant new construction and will record the full effectsz of the housing foreclosure Alvarez said. At the millage ratez used to developthe proposal, the owner of a home of averaged value in Miami-Dade’s unincorporated area woul d pay $8.
63 more a year than in fiscall 2008-2009, according to the Alvarez said that while it is a virtualluy flat millage rate budget, it will stilll impose significant service impacts to the He said the budget, which he has “agonizec over” in the past few months, “iw balanced and strives to keep our most basicf services intact.” But, it also includes the consolidatiob of some departments and the elimination of Under the proposal, salaries will be cut 5 percentt for all remaining county employees, which Alvarexz said would save more than $100 milliomn and more than 2,000 A countywide hiring freeze also would remainn in place.
The budget also slashes funding forall community-base organizations. It eliminates $11 milliomn in grants to hundreds of locapcultural organizations. General fund subsidies to museums, including , , and and Gardens, would be cut. Robertg McCammon, president and CEO of the Historical Museum indowntowjn Miami, said he expects to see a 41 percen drop in county funding. Despite the $512,009 cut to his budget, he said he hopes to avoidf layoffs. “We happen to be an institution with an he said. "We have been fairly conservative by managing it The museum’s endowment is $11 million, down from $16 million as a resulty of the economic downturn.
This the second year in a row that the museuk faces cuts incounty funding. In 2006-2007, the organization received anadditional $250,000. But, in the next fiscal year, that was cut by almosty as much as McCammon fears the museuk and the county will be facing the same problemsnext year. “We are still having foreclosures, short sales,” he said. “Ij would anticipate property values beintg lessnext year.” The according to Alvarez, was developed with the intent of not increasingg taxes, other than to allow for fundin g of critical public safety programs.
He added that, despitee "rampant speculation," a fire fee is not part of the Inanswering critics, he said the budget gap would be the same "withj or without a baseball new airport terminals or the host of other long-term construction projects on the drawing board. The dollarsx that fund these projects comefrom non-operatingf portions of the budget, and their uses are County Commission Chairman Dennis Moss said while the commission and county administration must work as a the budget is still a recommendation, a starting “Everything is on the table at this Moss said.